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After 30 years of faffing unsatisfactorily with just about every solution known to man - whetstones, pull-throughs of various sorts, wheels, diamond edges, v-shaped 'scrapers', steels, specific angle attachments, cheap electric grinders… I eventually bit the bullet & spent a darned fortune [£170] on a decent electric sharpener. Never looked back. It ...

myklbykl's suggestions to get the knife professionally sharpened and consistently use a honing steel are good. Here are a few more knife maintenance tips: You say you wash the knife after use. It is important you also dry it immediately after, as corrosion can cause even a stainless steel knife edge to dull. Also, never put good knives in a dishwasher! With ...

I would suggest professionally sharpening your knife and then buy a new steel (steel or ceramic — some manufacturers recommend one over the other for their knives) and use the steel every time either before or after using your knife to keep the edge aligned which will keep it sharp much longer.

The answer partly depends on how dull the knife is when you go to sharpen it. Most electric knife sharpeners have 2 or 3 different wheels with coarser and finer grinders, the coarser allow you to establish the angle of the edge and the finer grain refine it, similar to coarser and finer sandpaper. The two disadvantages of sharpening with a whetstone are ...

Destroy is too strong a word. For most knives the worst you can do by honing wrong is to take the edge off the knife. This isn't destroying it, it just means you need to get it sharpened again. Angle is the important thing with honing, you need to match the sharpened angle and be consistent. If you have a knife with a design or a pattern on the blade, like ...